Abstract

Previous research shows that brand familiarity can affect purchase behavior, such that a familiar brand will be preferred over a less familiar brand. Previous research also shows that the use of metaphoric advertisements increases purchase intent. However, it is unknown how consumers implicitly process familiar brands when reading advertisements. Through the divided visual field paradigm, we investigated how the left and right cerebral hemispheres process familiar brands when presented with advertisement slogans. Participants in this experiment read familiar brand names and were presented with metaphoric, literal, or neutral slogans. Participants responded to related target words briefly shown to either the right or left hemisphere. The right hemisphere showed greater facilitation for literal than for metaphoric slogans when consumers were presented with familiar brands. Purchase intent ratings were higher when targets were presented to the left hemisphere. These findings suggest that brand familiarity influences consumers’ processing of slogans in the right hemisphere and affects purchase intent ratings in the left hemisphere.

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